ROBIN WALKER has said he would be confident of securing a further £40 million to help expand the city's A&E department as well as open a new medical school.

Robin Walker, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Worcester, said he had secured £30 million for the hospital, which was eventually spent on extra ward space, and was confident he could get another £40 million to upgrade the A&E department if he was re-elected.

Mr Walker said he wanted to have a medical school in Worcester to help with recruitment and retention of doctors.

He said: "Our hospital was built too small and it needs to be made bigger. My first priority is to get the A&E upgraded.

"Undoubtedly, as we get new homes in the county there is going to be more pressures on our NHS and we need that extra capacity."

Mr Walker said the hospital had "amazing and incredible staff" but many said the hospital was too small and crowded.

"The other problem we have to fix is that we don't have enough doctors. Because we don't have enough junior doctors coming down from the Birmingham universities [to Worcester] and so I want to get a medical school for Worcester.

"We have a fantastic nurse training set up at the University of Worcester which does a really good job with nurses and midwives but I think if we could have a medical school on top of that it would help with both recruitment and retention and it would help us to get a pipeline of junior doctors coming through which would relieve some of the pressure."

Mr Walker was speaking after a tour of the city's Bosch factory with chancellor Sajid Javid to see the boilermaker's hydrogen-fuelled boiler on Friday (November 8)

More money for the county's hospitals against a backdrop of 14,000 new homes in the south of the county in the next 20 years and extra funding for currently overcrowded trains in and out of the city were the topics of conversation when he spoke with the Worcester News.

Mr Javid said: "To support the NHS, in Worcestershire, and throughout the country, we would keep a strong economy. That is what funds the NHS.

"More people in work and paying their taxes means we can plough more back into our excellent public services. We can't take the strength of the economy for granted."

Mr Javid said he could not yet promise specific funding for Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

Mr Javid said the Conservative government had already invested a record £34 million a year in the NHS and "a lot" of the money would going to Worcester and the rest of the county.

Asked whether he could promise specific funding for a new hospital in the county or more funding for Worcestershire Royal, Mr Javid said: "We have already set out investment plans of hospital upgrades and investment in skills whether that is doctors, consultants and more nurses and that includes, of course, Worcestershire as well."